FHSU children's summer music camp offers wide range of activities
By BRANDON WORF
As summer draws near, many parents of children in elementary and grade school look for alternative means of keeping their kids occupied other than video games, movies and television.
Enter summer music camps.
The Department of Music at Fort Hays State University will be offering numerous camps for children this summer, most notably the High Plains Band Camp in July, and entering its seventh year, the High Plains Children's Music Camp of 2008.
For Laura Andrews, professor of music education, this is an exciting time of year.
"I love doing this, it's something I've always liked doing, and the kids certainly seem to enjoy," Andrews said. "The camp itself is about music, but we incorporate all kinds of stuff into it like dance, reading, writing, those kinds of things."
Running through the first week of June, the High Plains Children's Music Camp the camp will expose kids to the basics of music, performing and folk dance. But the camp also has the added benefit of giving each child their own recorders.
"Each of the kids get a recorder with their fee," she said, and then clarified with a laugh. "And that's the instrument, not the device."
Working with the staff, who happen to be music education students at FHSU, Andrews has been developing the units for this year's camp but isn't quite finished on setting them yet.
"We're brainstorming, but not entirely solid on every one of them," she said. "We're no longer offering beginning piano, but we will have dancing again, and we may have some basic music theory thrown in there."
Andrews said the camp is based on the nine standards for music education, and that if all camp activities are based on singing, dancing, reading, writing and creating, then things will work.
"We hit all those bases, and we even work on nutritional parts, too," she said. "We give the kids snacks of fruit and things like granola, and it helps get them going and focus better."
For the staff, it's a rewarding experience, and two of the five staff members are returning from previous years. Hays resident Katie Steinert is returning for her third year, and resident Sarah Odum is returning for her second. For Steinert, a senior in vocal and instrumental music education, the end of the weeklong camp shows it all.
"It's really rewarding at the end of the week," Steinert said. "You can really see the results of everything you've done over the course of five days, and the parents get to see it, too."
For Odum, a senior majoring in music education and vocal performance, the experience was the factor in her return.
"It's a good way to experience teaching kids of this age," Odum said, "And it's fun teaching and working with them."
A third staff member, Liz Fay, a senior in music education, was trying it out for the first time and was doing it for the experience and the credentials.
"I've never taught recorder to an entire class," she said. "So this will be interesting, and I've thought about doing this kind of thing in the future on my own."
The camp is limited to 40 students, but according to Andrews, space hasn't really been a concern -- but it hasn't been empty either.
"You know, we really have appreciated the public and private school music teachers getting the word out to their students, and encouraging them to attend," Andrews said. "In years past, we would distribute the information to their offices, and then it would go from there. But this year, we're giving the sign-up information straight to the music teachers so they can tell their kids instead of having to rely on a third person."
She said a majority of students come back for the next few years after their first time, and that some have quite a good time.
"The dancing classes are fun, but our motto is 'Make Some Music,' " she said. "Last year, we had a mother mistakenly tell her daughter that the camp was two weeks long when it's only one week, and the girl wasn't too happy when she was told otherwise," she laughed.
The High Plains Children's Music Camp is from 9 a.m. to noon June 2 to 6 at Malloy Hall on the FHSU campus. The cost is $50, which covers camp materials, a T-shirt and a soprano recorder. Deadline to register is May 30. To apply, contact Andrews at (785) 628-5352, or by e-mail at landrews@fhsu.edu. Applications also are online at www.fhsu.edu.
